Tan wondered if he would have died had it not been for Light helping with the pain, or for his ability to reach deeper into the earth connection and surge through the earth bond so that he could find a way to bridge earth and spirit. What would have happened to him had he not discovered that?
Likely, he would have died.
Where are they?
I will show you.
She soared up and up, and Tan knew that she took him to the area where he had left the other shapers who had traveled with him before going with Jorma. As they rode, he detected the shaping that came from their encampment, some sort of barrier, much like the one that surrounded the entire island.
With a burst of spirit mixed with each of the elements, Tan exploded through the barrier.
They had shaped it well, but Tan no longer cared to help preserve the work of the Order. It needed to fall. Perhaps the Order of Warriors needed to fall.
The other side of the barrier revealed what he had feared. The shapers who had come with him were trapped, confined near the edge of the rock. Nearly three dozen other shapers remained around them, holding a shaping. Each looked up as Tan crashed through the shaped barrier.
They turned their focus to him.
Working together, the warriors managed a shaping of more power than anything that Tan had ever seen, even when facing the Utu Tonah. This pressed upon him, over thirty shapers of significant power and knowledge. At the center was Jorma.
Tan had underestimated her.
Power practically pulsed from her, nearly a visible thing. Tan realized that they had been trying to separate the bonds the shapers held, trying to peel away the naturally formed connections.
Drawing on his new understanding of the element bonds, and of the elementals, he deflected the attack. He continued to pull more and more power, letting it fill him. Then he drew upon even more. Shaped energy overcame him.
Tan released it.
The shaping pushed back what Jorma controlled. She fought, pushing, strain evident in her face, and then her shaping failed.
As it failed, he dropped next to her and wrapped her in a shaping of each of the elements. The other warriors had fallen as well, thrown back by the force of Tan’s shaping. “Where is he?” he asked.
He could sense that the others with him were unharmed. The shaping that he had used to overwhelm Jorma had restored their ability to shape, and each of the shapers and the warriors with him suddenly surged with shaped power. The energy of it filled him.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she said. “You have no idea what you risk through your actions.”
“I have every idea what you risk through your actions,” Tan said.
He reached through the connection of wind bonded to spirit, detecting the way Honl existed in the bond, and suddenly realized where he had been bound. Tan couldn’t see the wind elemental, but he would be nearby, tied to the binding that Jorma had used and forced upon him, suppressing the connection that Tan shared with him.
And she wore it as a necklace.
Tan reached for it and jerked it from around her neck. With a surge of spirit, he destroyed the rune that she had used to contain Honl, allowing him to return.
That wasn’t enough, though. The connection between them was there, but Honl had been injured by the shaping, forcing him into a bond while he already had been a part of another. Such an action made it difficult for Honl, and he was weakened. If not for the bond that Tan shared with him, he didn’t know that the elemental would survive.
Tan pressed spirit into the bond.
Amia reached through their connection, her relief that he was unharmed almost palpable, and helped Tan as he connected to Honl. The spirit connection was the most damaged. Amia helped, but so too did Light, sending a shaping through spirit, a surge of power that helped reconnect to Honl. Then Tan pressed through the wind bond, reaching for Honl.
And there he was, distantly and faded in the back of his mind, but present.
Tan slowly prodded him, urging his presence forward. The elemental resisted, as if scared, but Tan sent more and more of himself through the connection.
Honl. It is Maelen. It is time for you to return.
Moments passed without an answer. When he did answer, he came tentatively.
Maelen?
I’m here.
This cannot be. You could not get past the barrier. Tan sensed panic set into the elemental, and power pulled upon the connection to wind. Were he not connected to the wind bond, Tan would have struggled to soothe his bonded wind elemental. As it was, he managed to help calm Honl but worried that the elemental had been permanently harmed.
Spirit let me past the barrier.
Spirit is not strong enough, Honl said, but there was uncertainty to the claim.
The Daughter is with me.
Even that would not be enough.
I can reach the spirit bond.
Darkness like a cloud shimmered into the shape of a man and stood before Tan. The last time that Tan had seen him, he had appeared well-defined, but there were still parts of him that were indistinct. Shadows. Almost as if Honl were unable to fully create the shape that he needed. Now, he was fully distinct, and the longer that he stood in front of Tan, the more solid he appeared, almost as if he were a middle-aged man with a heavy black cloak. Only the way that he floated above the ground gave him away.
“Maelen?”
“I’m here.”
“I… I don’t understand. What happened?”
Tan shot Jorma a hard glare. “I would ask you the same when you’re feeling better. It seems that you have found the ancient Order of Warriors and they forced you into a binding.”
Honl turned too quickly for any man, making it seem that his body split in half as he spun. “The Utu Tonah. They sent him to become a Shaper of Light.”
Tan frowned. “Sent him?”
“That’s what I came here to understand. On Xsa, I found documents that led me to Opan. From there, I went to Botaar. And from there, I had enough to believe that the Order of Warriors still existed. There were shapers in the world, in those other parts of the world, who served on their behalf. That was when I discovered that the Utu Tonah had come from these lands. But reaching here without a key was nearly impossible. I… I sacrificed a part of myself getting through.”
He held his arms out to his sides and spun in the air. “How is it that you restored me?”
As Tan started toward Honl, Jorma unsheathed her sword and started swinging it. Runes glowed along the side of the warrior sword, a brilliant white light that surged from the blade.
Tan didn’t know what would happen were she to connect with Honl, but he was unwilling to risk it. With a shaping of pure spirit, he stopped her, holding her in place.
“How is it that you do this, Maelen?” he asked.
“You’re the one who told me that I was a Shaper of Light,” Tan answered. “I don’t know quite what that means, but there’s a connection to the element bonds that is important.”
He made a slow circle of Jorma, frowning at her as he did. What was he to do with her? If she told the truth about anything, he believed that she and the Order had somehow managed to suppress the darkness from escaping. It was possible that she hadn’t misled him about the creature she called Tenebeth. But what else might she have lied about? And was there a way that he could work with her? If they were to stop the darkness, he would need everyone able to fight, and the Order had more ability than any in the kingdoms, Incendin, or Par with shaping, knowledge that had been retained over the years and passed down to the warriors that Tan had met.
He pulled the sword from her hand. Jorma’s eyes widened, but she was unable to move, bound as surely as if he held her in rope. Scanning her, and reaching through each of the element bonds, he searched for a sign that she might hold other bonds that he needed to be concerned about, but didn’t detect anything else. Then he used spirit, pushing past the barriers that she built around her mind, realizing
that he could push past those barriers as he searched for evidence that she might have been tainted.
Why else would she have treated him as she did?
Tan pushed deep into her mind, holding tightly to spirit. The superficial layers of her mind, those that held her actions and emotions, revealed nothing. Tan pushed even deeper, looking for more as he strove to find what she might be hiding. Memories flashed into him, coming from a place deep within her. She fought him hard as he did, but Tan was connected to spirit and pushed past.
He felt a moment where he wondered whether he should attempt to delve so deeply into her mind. Was what he did any different than what the archivists had done? Was it all that different than what angered him about how they had used their abilities?
But he didn’t reach into her mind to know her secrets. And he didn’t reach into her mind to force her to act against her will. Tan reached into her mind simply to understand and to know whether she needed him to help in ways that she might not even understand.
Through her mind, he detected the memories she possessed of the Order. There was pride in her leadership, of the knowledge that they served a noble cause and one where she fiercely protected both her people and the perception that she helped others.
Tan realized that she honestly thought that she fought the darkness.
He traced her memories of the Order, discovering her training, absorbing what he could of the way that she used shaping, noting clever uses that he never would have considered but to her were simply a part of the knowledge that shapers were expected to possess. Beyond that, he found her family history, how a mother had died when she was young, a father who lived much longer before dying naturally.
And then her child. He detected how she raised her son, the way that she had taught him all that she knew, hoping that he could be the one prophesied by the ancients, and how she had helped him part the barrier, if only long enough to escape.
Tan nearly lost the connection then.
The Utu Tonah had been her son.
What must she think about the fact that Tan had killed him? He hadn’t hidden from her what he had done, or why it had been necessary.
And here he had thought that the Order might know something that he did not. They might have shaping ability that he didn’t possess, but as he continued to find, none possessed his understanding of the elementals.
Yet the reason that she had sent the Utu Tonah away had been for him to gain understanding. She had intended for him to return to Norilan. Not as the Utu Tonah, but as the Shaper of Light.
He started to withdraw from her mind. What more would he learn remaining in there; what more might he discover that would be useful rather than making him uncomfortable with what he had done and what he had become?
As he did, there was nothing more than a strange sense that made him pause. Not a shadow, but a shadow of a shadow, like night reflected upon the surface of a calm pond.
Tan recognized this.
Wrapping it in spirit, he pulled it away, drawing this shadow out of Jorma’s mind. It came slowly, oozing away from her, and he had to work carefully. Barbs of the darkness were embedded in her mind, and he pried them free, thinking as he did of the plants within Incendin that would shoot barbs when too close.
Tan wrapped this darkness in spirit as he separated it from her mind. When he reached a particularly difficult spot, he sensed Amia guiding him, helping him as he peeled away the layers of the shadow.
And then it was free. Tan pulled the darkness away, and it writhed and fought against him. He placed a protective layer of spirit overtop Jorma’s mind and then bundled the darkness in spirit more tightly, finally sealing it with a binding like he had before when he had peeled the darkness away from the elementals.
The binding compressed tightly and faded to little more than a more of dust, and then disappeared into the sky.
He turned to Jorma.
Taking the darkness from her had aged her. Deep wrinkles had formed at the corners of her eyes. Her hair had thinned, and her skin had taken on a sunken, almost hollow appearance. Even her back had stooped, almost as if the darkness had granted her some sort of ongoing health.
“What have you done?” she asked in a wheeze.
“You were tainted. I removed it.”
She started toward him and then fell.
Light jumped from his neck and made her way to Jorma, stopping before her. Tan expected her to lick the woman, maybe offer a healing connection, but she did not. Instead, she simply stared, fixing the elderly shaper with brightly glowing eyes.
A pulse of spirit surged from Light. Through their bond, Tan understood what she did, and understood what she had learned.
Jorma had not been tainted. She had sought power, and been given it.
The darkness that had reached her had been of her choosing.
Jorma reached for him, but Light jumped, settling on the woman’s back. Spirit pulsed again. As he watched, Jorma appeared to age even more, the skin of her face thinning, bones becoming more prominent, and her eyes sinking.
And then she stopped breathing.
Not because of anything that Light had done, but simply because Tan had removed the taint that clung to her, keeping her alive.
Light shaped again, and Jorma’s body burst into flames. She crawled away and jumped back onto his shoulders, landing with grace and agility that still surprised him, and licked his face.
28
Return to the City
The city settled in the base of the canyon was awash with a mixture of emotions when Tan and the others descended to the valley floor. Grief at the loss of Jorma, the tale of her passing preceding them, and interest and excitement that shapers from the outside world had come. The emotions conflicted, often within the same person, Tan sensed. It was why he kept his shapers apart.
Tan had made clear to Nator what had happened, while at the same time testing to determine whether Nator had been similarly tainted. Of the other shapers, he only detected one other with darkness shading their mind. When he removed it, the man had thanked him, making Tan believe that it had been accidental rather than intentional.
“Why would she welcome Tenebeth into her heart?” Nator asked as Tan and Amia stood at the edge of the city. He hesitated about getting too close, not until he knew what to expect.
Honl answered for him. “She sought knowledge,” he said.
Nator’s eyes widened, and he stared at Honl, likely surprised as most that the elemental could speak aloud. “All of the Order seek knowledge, Great One, but none have gone to Tenebeth for such learning before now.”
Honl’s mouth parted in something like a smile. His cloak flapped softly in what appeared to be a breeze, though no wind blew through here. “She thought she knew enough that she could be safe. She wanted to understand so that she would know how to halt Tenebeth. In some ways, her pride was the reason that she fell to him.”
“How is it that you know?” Nator asked.
“When she held me in the bond, there was something of a connection,” Honl answered. “She thought to force a bond to me but did not realize that I had already bonded. Still, I understood her more than I would have liked.”
Honl floated above the ground and turned to Tan. “What now, Maelen? You have come to Norilan, surprising me with your growing capabilities. And you have destroyed much of the bond that holds back Tenebeth. What do you intend?”
Nator stared at him in shock. “If you truly are a Shaper of Light, you would not free him!”
Tan looked up. “The elementals sacrificed enough.”
“The bonds kept them safe,” one of the other warriors said. This was an older man with a large belly and a bald head. He had sharp eyes that seemed to take in everything around him. “Without the bonds, they will already be called to Tenebeth. With that much potential, we will no longer be safe here.”
“We were never safe here, Dennon. But we are of the Order. Our sacrifice prevents a greater catastrophe. Or did.”
“The bonds are no longer necessary to keep the elementals safe,” Tan said. Through the element bonds, he could feel the way that spirit protected them and the way that the elements were all connected.
Dennon frowned. “You are the Shaper, so I will trust that the Light knows what must be done, but the bonds also contained him. Without the bonds, all that remains is the barrier, and that is incomplete. If Tenebeth gets free…”
Tan nodded. That was the reason that he remained now that he had found Honl. He had freed the elementals, but they had served a purpose, and they had maintained something of the binding. Not entirely, though. The original binding had failed or had never succeeded in the first place. Tan didn’t know if he would be able to put it in place, and if he could, whether that would matter, and whether that would hold Tenebeth back, but he understood now that was what he must do.
Tension in Amia’s eyes made her worry clear. “Are you strong enough for that?” she asked.
“For what?” Nator asked him.
“To repair the binding,” Amia said.
Dennon’s frown deepened. “You might be the Shaper, but you are an outsider as well. We have lived with the threat of Tenebeth for many years, and we understand the extent of his reach. Without the power stored within the bonds, nothing holds him in place.”
“The binding will,” Tan said.
“That’s just it,” Dennon said. “The binding never existed in Voidan. The Order attempted to place it, but failed.”
That is why it remains free, Light said to him.
But we saw the binding, didn’t we?
I do not know, Maelen.
What now, if they hadn’t found the binding? What did it mean that the ancient shapers who knew enough about the darkness to erect the bindings in the first place hadn’t managed to secure them all?
“They intended to place the final binding near them,” Dennon went on, “at the heart of their city, and in the heart of their power. The Order wanted to maintain the binding, knowing that it would be essential to defeating Tenebeth, but they were unable to place it. The records we have from that time are sparse, mostly because we are not able to reach deep enough into the ruins of the city to find them. When they realized they would fail, they placed alternative layers of protection around the city, and then around the entire land as well, intending to seal off Tenebeth from accessing the land outside these borders.”
Light of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 10) Page 21
